Gannon Knight Perspective

     Every year, The Knight publishes 23 or 24 issues. I’ve been writing a column for each of those issues for the last two years; the year prior I wrote one every other week. I’ve written 59 columns in my time here. The question I slaved over every single one of those weeks was always the same: “What on earth am I going to write about?” Sometimes, “Why the hell did they give me this job?” popped in there, too. Now the question becomes “How do I say goodbye?”
     I have so many people to whom I need to say “I love you,” to thank and to bid farewell, but here’s the kicker: I probably won’t. I’ll explain why in a hot second, after a blanket acknowledgement of the men and women who have helped me become who I am, and who I will be.
     The Honors program. The English department. The beautiful souls who work in the Counseling Center. My roommates. My friends. The members of Sigma Tau Delta and Alpha Psi Omega.
     The list is a cop-out, but I worry that if I single out the ones who have touched the center of my heart and irrevocably changed me, I’ll embarrass them with sentimentality. I can be a walking Hallmark card if I really want to be.
     But, I’m not really big on goodbyes. “Goodbye” is far too final, too definite. It’s a big deal. Graduating, to me, simply isn’t a big deal. It’s just the next step.
     I’ll also be the first to admit that I have a delayed emotional reaction to many things; I doubt I’ll cry at

commencement. This isn’t because I don’t care, or the process of leaving college isn’t affecting me, it’s just that it takes me awhile to process these things. I’ll probably just have a panic attack in mid-August when I realize I’m not coming back.
     The upside to the delayed emotional reaction is that I can remain focused on the present. I can treat every day like every day before it – no more special, no more less so. It might be a flawed coping mechanism, but it works.
     Point being, reader, is that we’re all facing similar challenges and dealing with similar emotions. It doesn’t matter how you’re handling the last days of the semester, or what new challenges you face. What matters is that you are handling them, in whatever way works for you – your method is beautiful and perfect because it is yours, whether it’s tears, all-nighters, bar-hopping, studying, panic or jubilation.
     As my last Tuesday Knight ends, I want to take special care to thank every journalist who has sat in the newsroom on the corner of Seventh and Peach streets. Everyone from the last four years, the special writers who are much more than bylines: you’re all a part of my soul.
     How could I say goodbye to things so pivotal in my world as The Knight and Gannon University?
     That’s just it – I can’t. You carry the important things with you, and I’m proud to carry my Gannon experience – and the diploma – with me through the rest of my life.
     No goodbyes.